Signs of Winter with the Paper Players

Good morning stampy friends!  And it IS a good morning, because it's time for a new challenge from The Paper Players!  Check out the theme this week courtesy of the lovely Joanne:

So when you hear the word winter, what do you think of?  Evergreen trees?  Skiing?  Snowflakes or snowmen?  All valid answers and all on the challenge graphic, but you know what I think winter is for?  Tea and books!  And a snuggley blanket!

Yep, while the hubs and the kiddo were out skiing last weekend, I was snug in our house with a cuppa tea and a good book (and also icing my hand after I fell down, I can't imagine how I would injure myself if I tried skiing).  For my card, I combined a teacup image from the long-retired Take a Sip (a wheel that I unmounted and turned into stamps, it lives in the stamp case with the coordinating Morning Cup stamp set) and a stack of books from last year's For the Books.  I found my winter greeting in Delicate Pines, and I took my colors mostly from the Penguin Playmates DSP, though the pattern I used is monochromatic Fresh Freesia--I chose the snowflake pattern to support the winter theme of my card.  I had fun coloring in my stack of books, added a few Two-Toned Sparkle Gems even though this is a CAS design, and done.  The color on the sparkle gems doesn't show up too well in my picture but it does coordinate well with my card IRL.

Do you like to read?  My kiddo does not, which I find inconceivable.  Last week I was reading The Lord of the Rings:  The Return of the King, and now I am reading the third book in the Anne of Green Gables series.  I read every single day and can't imagine going any length of time without reading something.  I've been a bit fixated on Middle Earth of late, which is funny because the first time I read the books I thought they were an absolute slog, but I enjoyed them much more this time around.  Next Saturday the hubs and I are going to see the extended edition of The Two Towers on the big screen for my birthday.  I have the movies in our library, but there's no telling how long it would take me to get through an almost 4-hour movie when I'm getting interrupted by Ryan or Daphne or bedtime or laundry or what have you, so I will enjoy going to see it all in one go in theaters.  Going to the movies is also a fun winter activity : )

I digress.  I hope you'll check out the Paper Players blog to see what my teamies think of when winter is upon us, and upload your own creation there.  You can also hop through all the blogs:

The Paper Players Design Team

Jaydee

LeAnne Pugliese

Claire Broadwater

Joanne James

Anne Marie Hile

Ann Schach

Jan Clothier

Stef Perry

you are here --> Christy Stanford

And then upload your card at the Paper Players blog!  Keep in mind a few simple rules:
1.  Create a new paper project
2.  Upload your creation to your blog with a link back to us and provide a direct link to the post featuring your challenge submission
3.  Please link your card to no more than four challenges, TOTAL
4.  Have fun!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Take a Sip, For the Books, Delicate Pines
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Stampin' Blends in Balmy Blue, Fresh Freesia, Just Jade, Pretty in Pink, Soft Sea Foam, Ivory, Bronze
Paper:  Balmy Blue, Thick Basic White, Penguin Playmates DSP
Accessories:  Nested Essentials dies, Dimensionals, Two-Toned Sparkle Gems

Book Nerd

Mornin' y'all!  I am running on about four hours of sleep--the hubs and the kiddo came back from Alabama last night and by the time we got home from the airport it was almost one in the morning.  Then Daph woke me up to go outside at 4 and at 6 I just gave up and got out of bed.  I think a nap will be in order this afternoon before Ryan's swim lesson.  Still happy to have my boys home : )  Funny story:  I thought they were coming back on Sunday until Sunday afternoon, good thing I found out I was wrong before heading out to the airport late Sunday night!

Anyway, have you ever seen a challenge that just makes you ponder for a while?  Because that was me with this week's Paper Players challenge:

What do I have that I can recycle on a card?  I looked all over my craft room and was pretty much stumped, and then I came across some stickers on the dresser in my bedroom.  I buy hand-dyed cross stitch fabric from this wonderful lady in Indiana and she puts little goodies in the packages when she sends the monthly subscription fabric (I have enough fabric to last a couple of lifetimes but don't tell my hubs that).  It used to be candy, for a while it was cute little shaped erasers, and now it's stickers.  And I found two of them on my dresser and finally a light bulb went off.  So here's my card:

I used both stickers on my card front after stamping my bookish background with various stamps from For the Books.  And if you lurk here on the regular you know that I have been turning my book obsession into cards for a bit with my Nancy Drew challenge : ) so yeah those stickers are perfect!

I took my color cue from Cupcake Inspirations:

I used Peach Pie and Poppy Parade for the colors, happily for me that heart on the first sticker dovetailed nicely with this color challenge.  So yay, I've actually used two of the stickers instead of just letting them pile up in my house, so thank you to the Paper Players for the recycling challenge.  It started out as a head-scratcher but I'm happy with where we ended up : )

Time to get Ryan off to his first summer camp.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  For the Books
Ink:  Peach Pie
Paper:  Basic Black, Poppy Parade, Peach Pie, Whisper White on the inside
Accessories:  stickers, Textured Notes dies

Spring Reading

Mornin' y'all!  I had a good time working in my craft room yesterday--made a couple of cards, worked on some scrapbook pages, it was great : )  And here's my card for today:

I used the colors from the Paper Players:

I went with Highland Heather, Lemon Lolly, Coastal Cabana, and Granny Apple Green.  These colors would be absolutely perfect for a spring floral card so I had to be a Mary Mary Quite Contrary and do something totally different : p  I decided on For the Books after seeing the sketch from Hand-Stamped Sentiments:

I used two dies from Nested Essentials for the top two shapes and just stamped my sentiment on the main image panel.  A little bit of coloring and done!  Happily for me, I have some of the old Coastal Cabana Blendabilities and Joanne reminded me that those exist so I dug them out to use for coloring in my stack o' books.  I have been reading quite a lot lately too, and I am currently 17 books ahead of schedule to hit my reading goal on Goodreads.

Anyway, time to chivvy Ryan out the door and off to school, then I need to do a training session with the Daphinator and take her for a walk.  Then I'm gonna finish up those scrapbook pages I started yesterday : ) Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  For the Books
Ink:  Pebbled Path, Stampin' Blends in Highland Heather, Lemon Lolly, Granny Apple Green, Coastal Cabana (retired Blendabilities)
Paper:  Coastal Cabana, Thick Basic White, Highland Heather & Granny Apple Green DSP
Accessories:  Nested Essentials dies, Faceted Gems, Dimensionals

Five Stars

Happy Friday, y'all, and guess what?  It's my birfday!!  So far today, I have done dishes, put the dining room chairs back in place (hubs moved the china hutch, yay!), and vacuumed the living room, so things are finally getting back to their rightful places after painting last weekend.  But after I take Daph for a walk, it'll be crafty time!

And I got to play with some new stamps yesterday, take a look!

You can't see it in the picture, but I used Wink of Stella on the little details on each book, and the shimmer goes along with the Fine Purple Shimmer Gems I used as accents (because I couldn't resist putting them on here even though I'm doing a CAS challenge).  I'm so happy to have some book stamps from SU!  Though I admit I bought some non-SU! bookish stamps last year (but I haven't used them yet).  So for this stamp set's maiden voyage, I used the colors at Cupcake Inspirations:

I used Pretty in Pink, Gorgeous Grape, and Petunia Pop.  I admit I had a hard time coming up with a magenta shade...I know we have Magenta Madness, but it seemed too bright and overpowering with the other two colors, so I used Petunia Pop.  The books and greeting are both stamped twice in Gorgeous Grape to give an extra-dark purple and then I colored with blends.

Next up is the CAS Colours & Sketches sketch:

I like this sketch, it's fun.  I tore a piece of scratch paper and used it as a mask before sponging and stamping in the corner, easy peasy.

That's it for me today, peeps.  Have a great day, I'm looking forward to Tex Mex for dinner tonight : )  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  For the Books
Ink:  Gorgeous Grape, Pretty in Pink, Stampin' Blends in Highland Heather, Pretty in Pink, Petunia Pop
Paper:  Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Dimensionals, Fine Purple Shimmer Gems, Wink of Stella

One more thing, I got the pantry organized yesterday:

We painted it dark green but left the shelves that greige color that everything used to be.  And having everything back in place and all organized makes my little nerdy heart happy : )

And this is hanging on the wall in the pantry now, where it should be.  That was hand stitched by ME fifteen years ago.  Anyway, we still have to put the blinds back up on the kitchen windows and a few things like that, but I'll share pics of the kitchen once that's done.  It is not all this dark green color, that's our accent color.  Which just so happens to be my favorite color : )